What's Holding You Back 8 Critical Choices For Women's Success

“Many women will never reach the point where a door bangs in their face because they've already slipped out a side exit.”--from the introduction to What's Holding You Back? Most books about women's ambition talk about society's glass ceiling, that infamous external barrier to achievement. This groundbreaking book is the first to explore the psychological glass ceiling—the invisible but powerful thoughts and feelings that stand in the way of real achievement.After thirty years of feminism, women continue to underachieve, occupying only ten percent of top-level managerial and professional positions. And significant achievement—influential woman leaders and visionaries—is rarer still. The reason, argues this bold and inspiring new book, lies in the self-imposed psychological glass ceiling, which influences every decision women make in their lives. What's Holding You Back? charts women's unique pathways to achievement and examines eight critical choices that determine their ultimate level of accomplishment.The Eight Critical Choices that Lead to Success: channeling motivation and turning it into real action learning to take risks (unlearning that rough play in the sandbox is wrong for girls) and embracing confidence and optimism in the boardroom moving from problem fixing (a typical female skill) to problem finding (a crucial component of success) focusing on purposeful self-evaluation and avoiding self-blame learning to compete in hierarchies (more anxiety-producing for women than individual competition) rebounding from failure and not taking it personally mastering the art of dealing with difficult people and accepting that negative feelings from others comes with the territory of “doing business” harnessing women's greatest strength—the capacity for connection—as a powerful tool of achievement From the pages of What's Holding You Back? , the voices of women from all walks of life speak to the challenges and triumphs of a commitment to productive ambition.